SoD or ELB? (in General)

I am wondering what everyone thinks about this. Could an archer actually use an SoD against a team and one hit kill them? Or could an SoD compare to an ELB is mainly what im asking. I want to see what people think about this... so please post away, I am trying to figure some stuff out about all this. I want to see if an SoD that was say 50m NW would compare to a 50m NW ELB, or compare it to a 25m NW SoD/ELB or even 150m, whatever, just trying to get some imformation on this...

put it this way if you hit 5 enemies you deal 100% + 40% x4 thats the total damage ELBs will hit harder in a single hit though... so take your pick

well with an ELB you can kill single minions faster and take less damage, or kill all of them slower. I'm not sure how the damages would stack up and what not, but I'd say an ELB would be the way to go.

speaking from exp with both..ELB owns face. combine it with a HoC and you got a mini dooms day device.

I wouldn't be seen dead with an ELB.

Horrible weapon.

*ducks the inevitable carpings*

SoD rocks.

Ok, so it's a ranged weapon and so it's not unbeatable. There is a little thing called evasion that will seriously hurt your chances.
It is however vastly overpowered, it can kill everything in ranged against any opponent (assuming you get around evasion) and that is in my opinion the defining factor in most usable ranged weapons.

It's the only ranged weapon that lets you hit everything in ranged, it's penalty (evasion) is a big one but the same could be said for the ELB.

SoD is costly, those dollars spent on explosive shots add up. But sometimes you do only get what you pay for.

The exception I'll make is if you're targeting opponents with less than 5 minions (including familiar), I still have my doubts but maybe ELB could be just as good.

More importantly though, if you must become another of those silly archers, you should at least use the interesting option.

The SoD lets you kill the most amount of minions in ranged; the ELB may do a lot of damage but only kills one at a time; which means you could be wasting it's firepower on enchanters only. The SoD can kill the damage dealers in ranged if it's strong enough and equipped with ex shots.

Also when equipped with ex shots it can reduce the power of a wall because of the splash damage; that same splash damage can also render the AoI useless.

Also if you're using the SoD you don't need to train archery (you don't need that with the ELB if your damage is high enough, but with archery you do reduce the CTH penalty on the ELB) but you can still use Beleg's, which means you can increase the attack; AND you can train evasion.

Both. ;)

so im gettign responses from both sides... anyone else have any ideas on this? I understand fully that ELB owns single minions, and a single minion team may beat me if i use SOD but with four minions i could kill all four in less than 4 rounds... so i dont know, jus trying to get some ideas

With a 4 minion team, I would choose a archer arming an ELB because your archer should be able to live through ranged rounds and still fire in the first round of melee with an ELB. You should effectively kill 5 minions in 5 rounds and you also have 3 meatshields to ensure you live through 5 rounds.

Tank with SoD and Archer with ELB on same team?

That tank with SoD w/ arhcer with ELb would be nice, but expsnvie. I am just trying to look around for a new startegy to tweak mine with, i love my strategy to death, but i love to have a challenge and find ways aorund thigns.

I have been able to test this pretty easily. PM loaned me his SoD for a few hours (Thanks a lot PM) and it helped me figure some stuff out. NW on both his SoD and My ELB is 29M. The only difference, he has x2001 +88, my ELB is x1360 + 106. So difference in damage.

With the ELB i kill in one round each round, no questions asked, so i guess the whole thing is, in MOST ALL situations, ur team is dead in as many rounds as u have minions.

With the SoD the damage was about 1/2 as much as the ELB, but still enough (ELB does 900k, SoD between 300-600k) but with the splash damage i was still able to kill off all teams in just as many rounds, except single tank teams, they took one more round of ex shots. no problems tho, didnt lose anyone on my fightlist. With any teams with 3-4 minions tho, instead of four rounds with an SoD, some actually only took 1 round, MAY BE 2!

So i have found that with large teams, i can use SoD, single teams, ELB, two minion teams... doesnt matter, ELB and SoD kill them both just as fast

Downside... i dont use DM for my own reasons, and GA kills me, not enough to kill my arhcer (might lose half mu health) but still, the splash damage being retaliated is horrible!

Anyone else have some insight on this.. mainly what i am trying to figure out is if i should go with an SoD or an ELB... hellp me figure this out!

Since you already know the pros of both weapons, why not do some easy statistical analysis on how many minions your current and potential enemies would have? If there's more than 60% having more than 2 minions, SOD will be your choice (though you need to factor in how easy to get explosive shots too) , else it will be ELB. That shouldnt' be too hard to do....

Mind you archery seems to be a must for ELB users, but SOD you get an extra slot for something else, or even not training any skill and pump more HP :)

exactly, so either more money into ammo but more exp into something else, or less money into ammo and more into archery. anyone else have anythig to add to this?

anyone else?

I guess no one else has tested this or had any ideas about the SoD?